Enter Lil Boël’s World. Shown in the Preface to La Fosse Commune des Misères (1942)

Abstract

The French author Lil Boël, whose real name was Héloïse Émilienne Bricoteaux (1900-1982), apart from her brief career as an actress and screenwriter in cinema (from 1947 to 1950), primarily produced literary work. Here, we focus on her sole published poetry collection, La Fosse commune des misères (1942), in which she invites us: “Enter, search! … It is all my heart”. More specifically, we will analyse the poem that serves as the preface, where she assumes the role of the author of this collection; each subsequent poem features a unique character, embodying various voices emerging from social destitution. Initially, we will examine the semantic and morphological techniques used by the author to designate her own poems and the individuals she describes. Secondly, we will discuss how the author utilised stigmas and instrumentalised them in the manner of a “freak-show exhibitor,” exposing and highlighting her “common pit of miseries.” This raises a broader question about the role of slang and stigmatisation in her work, and how Lil Boël managed to transform elements of marginality and suffering into a poetic language that carries both meaning and emotion.